Anthony Sampson

Anthony Sampson (died in 2004) "was one of the great journalists and writers on contemporary affairs of the 20th century - most famous today for his Anatomy of Britain (published in 1962) and its progeny; for his official and magnificent biography Mandela (1999); and for his lifetime commitment to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

"Anthony Terrell Seward Sampson, writer and journalist: born Billingham-on-Tees, Co Durham 3 August 1926; Editor, Drum 1951-55; staff, The Observer 1955-66, Chief American Correspondent 1973-74; Editor, The Observer Colour Magazine 1965-66; Contributing Editor, Newsweek 1977-2004; Editor, The Sampson Letter 1984-86; FRSL 1990; Chairman, Society of Authors 1992-94; married 1965 Sally Bentlif (one son, one daughter); died Wardour, Wiltshire 18 December 2004.

"Anthony Sampson was one of the great journalists and writers on contemporary affairs of the 20th century - most famous today for his Anatomy of Britain (published in 1962) and its progeny; for his official and magnificent biography Mandela (1999); and for his lifetime commitment to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

"He was also a leading light in the early days of the Lib Dems, through his friendship with Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins, and through his disappointment with Labour policies.

"Son of ICI's chief scientist, Michael Sampson, and a mother, Phyllis, with Cambridge connections with the Darwins and Huxleys (her father was the botanist and geologist Sir Albert Seward), he was no stranger to high politics or high-mindedness, though he refused labels, either political or moral, himself. But like his parents he was brainy and won a scholarship to Westminster School in 1941. The school had been evacuated to the wartime wilds of the Worcester-Hereford border, and the 40 scholars of whom he was one (others included Donald Swann the musician and Richard Wollheim the philosopher) lived together uneasily at Whitbourne Court, the summer residence of the Bishops of Worcester.

"Anthony was already a brilliant mathematician but less good at human relations and became somewhat withdrawn. He and two others - John Robinson, later HM ambassador to Israel and Pierre Young, who led the great Franco-British Concorde project in Bristol - called themselves Les Trois Cyniques. Religion played a large part in our lives but not in those of the cynical trio. We sang plainsong psalms daily before biking seven miles to Buckenhill, where the whole school assembled for lessons; then after a sandwich lunch and more school, biked back to tea, prep, supper and more church - a demanding routine in the depth of wartime rationing, driven by the implacable will of our headmaster, J.T. Christie, to keep Westminster standards whatever the obstacles..."


 * International Advisor, OneWorld International
 * Former Patron, Longford Trust

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